A ring is a network configuration in which devices are connected in a circular pathway. A SONET (Synchronous Optical Networks) ring uses devices that detect a failed ring span and instantaneously restore traffic between the affected nodes using an alternate path provided on the ring. The restoration occurs in milliseconds and hence SONET rings may be called self-healing rings. Ideally, each node in the network is included in a ring and the rings are designed to maximize coverage of loaded network spans at a low cost.
A ring cover is a set of rings that cover a set of network spans. Existing networks have ring covers that are designed manually. The manual design process is very time consuming and is influenced by a designer's experience and bias. It may take a ring designer as much as one week to design a network having thirty rings. With the increasing size and complexity of telecommunication networks, the number of possible ring combinations that can be generated may be upwards of 3,000,000. It would be impossible to manually examine such a large set of rings and extract an efficient ring cover from it. Hence there is a need for an automated system to help engineers with the process of identifying rings/ring covers that will best meet their network needs.